


If I Could Reach the Stars

by Naamah_Beherit



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Loss, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naamah_Beherit/pseuds/Naamah_Beherit
Summary: Elisabeth, in the aftermath of loss.
Relationships: Elisabeth Doppler/Noah | Hanno Tauber
Comments: 11
Kudos: 70





	If I Could Reach the Stars

Hanno will never return. It takes Elisabeth a while to accept that.

She waits for him at first. She counts hours, then days, then months as they pass in silence and solitude. The world has been like this ever since it had ended and then kept on going out of habit, but at least she had Hanno by her side who made it seem just a tad less grey.

Now grey is all that’s left.

It’s not like she’s idle in his absence. She never stops looking for Charlotte in case she’s lost somewhere in this wretched place and not in time. She searches for them both, Charlotte and Hanno, and for her own self, too, as she gradually loses it to the decaying world, one slice of humanity after another. Rain keeps falling: it washes away her tracks and tears, but she refuses to stop. She cannot. To give up is to die, and Elisabeth refuses to die.

She finds only silence in the ruins and emptiness in the woods. And as rain turns into snow, even the emptiness is gone. It gives way to stagnation, and Elisabeth rides on its tides.

There’s no sign of either Hanno or Charlotte.

What a fool Elisabeth was, asking about paradise over and over like a broken record from the world they’ve lost but never fully mourned. It took a loss to realise that paradise is what they had together, that last shard of normalcy in hell everything else had gone to.

She’s left only with memories, with an empty cot and an empty bed, with an empty heart and empty arms. Hanno will never return. Neither will Charlotte, and as the world grows ever colder, so does Elisabeth.

Hope is a shadow that lies at her feet, and it is hollow.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/naamahbeherit), [Tumblr](http://naamah-beherit.tumblr.com/), and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/naamahbeherit) if you'd like to say hello!


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